This blog is an attempt to share my love and knowledge of Traditional Folk Clothing and embroidery. I am open to requests to research and transmit information on particular Costumes for dance groups, choirs, etc. I do embroidery and sew costumes myself and I would like to spread interest into this particular Art Form

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Today we will continue our series on the costumes and embroidery of Halychyna. We will talk about Drohobych county. Here again is our map so we can orient ourselves.

This area is sometimes considered to be part of the Boiko Region, although in my opinion the Boiko Region properly speaking is in the mountains, and this area is just foothills. The Boiko region consists of Turka, Skole, Dobromyl, Perehinsk counties, and a piece of Poland east of the Sian river. The costume is similar, although an argument could be made that the costume is typical of Halychyna. Here is a woman wearing the Drohobych area costume from the village of Ripchytsi.

﻿The outfit consists of a chemise with local embroidery on inset [ustawka], cuffs and collar, skirt, in this case of store bought cloth. apron of two loom widths of linen, embroidered on the bottom edge, with an ornamental joining in the middle. Kamizelka in cloth matching the skirt of standard Halychyna cut, fastening in front, ribbons around the bottom edge. Kybalka on the head [wooden ring covered with cloth], covered by a kerchief, and boots. Here is another photo of a somewhat older form of the costume; this one is from the village of Litynia.

Maliovanka type skirt, of linen with home printed design. In this region there was usually a white design on a black background, the same double width apron, kybalka and kerchief, sash, footcloths with khodaky, moccasin type footwear with straps, and a keptar, sheepskin vest similar to the Hutsuls, but with simpler ornamentation.

Here is a couple from the village of Hruxhiw, showing the men's costume, again typical for Halychyna. Shirt same cut as women's, but shorter, with embroidery on the front, collar, cuffs, and a narrow band around the shoulder inset. Linen pants, with either boots or khodaky and footcloths, and a sash, or in this case a leather belt, from which hangs a knife and other daily useful items. men would also wear a sheepskin vest when needed. As in other parts of Halychyna, a long linen overcoat was worn in warmer weather, and a wool or sheepskin one in colder. The linen 'hellgrauefruejahrsmantel' is called a polotnianka, and it had minimal embroidery, as in this photo showing another costume from the village of Hrushiw. This man seems to be wearing two of them.

Kul'chytska verifies this basic costume, here is a drawing she made of a woman in the village of Hrushiw, around 1930. She includes some examples of embroidery.

﻿In contrast to the neighboring county of Rudky, where the embroidery is mostly red with some admixture of other colors, the embroidery of Drohobych county is mostly black, with some red. Some of the more recent designs resemble the designs of Rudky quite a bit, being rows of small roses with braid stitch in between. Here is an example of one such design. Change the colors and you would have a Rudky design.

The older embroidery designs were based on rows of braid stitch, herringbone and flat stitch in geometric designs, similar to Javoriw emboidery, and which are also still found to some extent in Horodok and Rudky counties, but in the same color scheme, mostly black with some red. Here is an example.

This is the embroidery on the shoulder inset of a woman's chemise. You can see the row of herringbone right on the seam turns up and forms a frame on the two sides of the ustawka. The small cross stitch design continues up the middle, as is typical of Halychyna. The several rows below are embroidered on the upper sleeve, and continue to the sides for a while. Later some cross stitch came to be incorporated in the designs, as in this example.

Again, you can see the design that frames the ustawka, and some of the rows on the bottom would have been on the upper sleeve. The more elaborate floral designs are the most recent to develop. Here is a graphing of the design from the ustawka and also the cuff of woman's chemise.

﻿The design for the cuff is at the top. The cuff is relatively wide, but not as wide as in the Sokal' region, and is overcast around the edge with alternating black and red thread. you can see the narrow design which frames the ustawa, and forms a line along the upper sleeve, but in this case, not below the ustawka embroidery. This design looks like it is meant for the shoulder inset and the sleeve to be cut in one piece. The cut of the chemise is the typical one for Halychyna. Approximate dimensions are shown in cm.

The chemise was not cut to be seen below the skirt in this region. If we look at some chemises, we see narrow designs embroidered not only along the sides of the shoulder insets, but along the top of the sleeve, and the sleeve seam as well. The sleeve on the right in this first photograph has embroidery very similar to the graphed one above which consistes only of braid sttich, herringbone and geometric flat stitching. The one on the left has a design similar to the one just above, including the narrow design that turns the corner and goes towards the seam of the sleeve.

﻿

Here is an embroidered shoulder inset from a woman's chemise, showing how the embroidery is distributed on the inset itself. It also includes part of the upper sleeve, the seam being the wide black line between the two rows of the rose design. This is made by means of a joining stitch different from that of the Sokal' region. Instructions can be found in Tanya Diakiw O'Niel's book, 'Ukrainian Embroidery Techniques', on page 127, under 'Boikian Joining'. [I think the 'woman's shirt' she has illustrated is actually a man's shirt, though].

The men's shirt has almost the same cut, except that there is wide embroidery on the collar and cuffs, and just the narrow frame on the shoulder pieces.

﻿Here is a closeup of the embroidery on the collar and front of a man's shirt.

﻿The cuffs are gathered into the cuffs, and sometimes the lower sleeve is smocked over the gathers, as in this example.

In some villages, the women wore a headpiece called a 'promychka' under the kerchief. The piece that showed in front on the forehead was embroidered and edged with buttonhole stitch. Here is an example of that embroidery.

Often you will see design typical of this region graphed in general books on Ukrainian Embroidery referred to as Boiko. There is, in fact a great deal of variety in Boiko embroidery, in color and technique. Here is one such example from Ruryk's 'Ukrainian Embroidery Designs and Stitches'.

This is the design embroidered on the disjointed shoulder inset shown above. That is enough for one posting i think, so i will give you just one more embroidery design and close.

﻿

Thank you for reading. I hope that you find this interesting, and will be able to use some of these ideas or designs in your own handiwork.

Feel
free to contact me with requests for research. I hope to eventually
cover all of Europe and the Former Russian Empire/Soviet Union. I also
gratefully accept tips on source materials which i may not have. I also
accept commissions to research/design, sew, and/or embroider costumes or
other items for groups or individuals.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

In my last posting i covered the Sokal'/Hrubieszow costume. Today i will present several examples of the distinct embroidery style which developed in this region. The embroidery was almost always in black cross-stitch, which argues against it being an old tradition. There is a lot of discussion as to the origin of this tradition, because it resembles nothing in nearby regions. There seems to be similarity to Chernyhiw embroidery, and some influence of the Baroque, but why this region developed this kind of embroidery remains a mystery. There were also found some of what became the sort of 'generic' Halychyna style in the 1920's and 30's, but i will keep those for another posting.
The earlier designs were geometric, which were later supplemented, and to some extent supplanted by floral designs. The purely geometric designs held on in the cuffs, which were exceptionally wide in this region. Here are a couple examples.

There was a lot of innovation going on in those years, one collector found a series of sketches done by a woman before she was satisfied with the composition. Some of the floral designs were very graceful and flowing, compared with the rather rigid designs in other regions.

﻿The geometric and the floral designs were commonly combined. Either side by side, or internally.

This last design is a cuff, and the narrow stripes were embroidered on pleats that were sewn down running a short way up the forearm. This was rare, but it did occur, see the photographs in the last posting.

The major emphasis of the embroidery was the shoulder inset, the ustawka, which was sewn into place using an ornamental joining stitch, shown here.

The shoulder inset was sometimes sewn in two pieces, and the joining stitch was then used on both sides of the lower piece. These lines of course, became part of the composition.

Later on, this practice was dropped, but the extra seam was often imitated by the embroidery, as in this example. This is from the collection of Iryna Kashubynska.

﻿

﻿You will notice the narrow band on the bottom, this was often embroidered low on the sleeve, away from the other sleeve embroidery, just above the point where the sleeve folded under to join the cuff. See the first photo in the last posting. Full sleeves were made longer than the arm so as to give ease of movement, and also for effect. These narrow designs were sometimes used on the front of the chemise, and were also used on the edges of the wide collars, sometimes just on the two side edges, sometimes on the back edge as well.

It is obvious that the overall composition was considered important. I will close with just a couple more examples. As is the case in other parts of Ukraine, expecially Volyn' and Polissia, sometimes the women decided to stretch the rules and make the embroidery on the sleeve vertical, rather than horizontal.

Here you can see that the collar was occasionaly the narrow stand up version. Colors were introduced at times as well, especially in later years.

I could go on, but I think that this is enough for one posting. I hope that this inspires someone to make something beautiful to wear or use.

Feel free to contact me with requests for research. I hope to eventually cover all of Europe and the Former Russian Empire/Soviet Union. I also gratefully accept tips on source materials which i may not have. I also accept commissions to research/design, sew, and/or embroider costumes or other items for groups or individuals.

Monday, April 25, 2011

We are continuing our series on the costumes of Halychyna, We have arrived at the northernmost county, Sokal'. Here is our map again, so you can orient yourself.

﻿You will notice that there seems to be a scoop taken out of the county. This is the state line with Poland, and the border in that region was renegotiated several times between the state of Poland and the Soviet Government in the late 1940's. The Sokal' region, ethnically and costumewise also extends further to the west beyond the current Polish border, and also north into Volyn' Oblast, Ivanychi county. Polish sources refer to this costume by the name of the county center on the Polish side of the border, Hrubieszow, which has a suspiciously Ukrainian sounding name. Hrubieszow is somewhat north of Halychyna. Here is a map showing the important villages in the Sokal' region.

The Sokal' costume falls into the same pattern as the other Halychyna costumes, embroidered chemise, hand printed skirt, maliovanka, linen apron, both later replaced by factory cloth, sash, kamizelka and kerchief. The embroidery of this region is very distinct. Here is a photograph of a pretty girl wearing this costume. You can see the finely gathered maliovanka, which in this region was printed with quite fine, simple designs. You can also see the distinctive embroidery style.

Though colors can sometimes be found in Sokal'/Hrubieszow embroidery, most of the existing examples are black, The cuffs are quite wide, and there is a large lay down sailor type collar, as in the Pidliasshia costume we looked at earlier. The shoulder inset, ustawka, is joined to the sleeve and the front and back panels with a special joining stitch. Often, as here, the embroidery on either side of the joining is identical or mirror image. Here is another photo showing the maliovanka, as well as the short jacket known as the kabat. In this region, this was made of quiet colors, often gray, with black velvet trim.

You will notice that she is not wearing an apron. This was fashionable in the region for a time.

Here is another old photograph showing a woman wearing the maliovanka and the old style linen apron with woven ornament.

﻿Later, both the apron and skirt became made of store-bought cloth. The apron became very wide, ornamented with tucks, ribbons and store-bought lace. Here is a dummy wearing the costume from that period. She is also wearing the kamizelka. The cut of the kamizelka is similar to other parts of Halychyna, but again in quiet colors with velvet trim.

﻿

Here is a photograph taken in 1915, This is Kateryna and Teodozij Dulia. She is wearing the kersetka in a dark color, blue or maybe gray, but still trimmed with black velvet. He is in military uniform.

﻿In the 1920's and 30s, folk embroidery became very fashionable. Many women began embroidering elaborate aprons in many colors, [I personally believe that DMC had just started distribution in the area] but of only one loom width, with fringes on the bottom, often knotted in macrame. This was part of the Halychyna 'town costume' of the era, which i will do a posting on later. But the fashion of the apron spread to the Sokal' region as well, as we can see from this woman. She is wearing another, longer type of kamizelka, called the sachek.

And here is my friend Annette modeling the Sokal' costume which I made for another friend of mine, Carol. I did not have access to block printed cloth, but i found this material which has a small woven in design which approximates the maliovanka of the region quite well. I made the apron out of a rushnyk i had which had the embroidery on the two ends on opposite sides, making it useless for most things. The chemise i embroidered myself, after designing the embroidery based on traditional motifs.

﻿Carol found the sash online and ordered it. It looks reasonably like the one which i have documentation of. It is not very distinctive, woven with stripes on an inkle loom.

The chemise was made in two parts, the lower part, which was under the skirt and did not show, was usually made of a coarser linen. Many of the chemises collected are missing this part. Here is a typical cut for the chemise, which follows the basic Halychyna pattern.

﻿The slit in the front was folded over, so that it could be sewn under with an overlap. For the men's costume, originally the pants were made of the same home printed cloth, with the opening at the waist somewhat to the side in line with the knee, fastened with a button. A shirt, of the same cut as the woman's with embroidery on cuff, collar and front. Unfortunately, the only images i have of the old costume show the men with their overcoats on, as usual.

The black cording on the front of the garments in squares is typical for this region. By the late 1920's, the men had abandoned the linen pants in favor of jodphurs and riding boots, derived from the Austrians. In keeping with the fashion in Halychyna, the shirtfronts were embroidered in two wide bands. In this region, there were also wide cuffs and collars. In The Sokal' region at this time, married men started wearing vests, seemingly taken from the Austrians, and so wedding shirts, and shirts for married men had either no embroidery on the fronts, or it only extended a short way, because it would not be visible under the vest. Here is a photo from the late 1920's showing several married men and one unmarried. They also wore short jackets not dissimilar to those worn by the women.

I will save a closer examination of the embroidery for the next entry, Sokal' style embroidery is very popular.

Thank you all for reading.

Here you see another example of my work. Feel free to contact me with requests for research or commissions for sewing or embroidering costumes or other items.

Today i will be continueing my series on the costumes and embroideries of Halychyna. I will still be focused on L'viw Oblast. There are in fact, some counties that i have little to no informantion on. I would be glad to recieve any information that anyone might have. Today I will be presenting some old embroideries from Zhowkva, previously Nesteriw, and Rava Rusa counties. Here is our map of L'viw Oblast again for orientation.

The only source i have for this material is Krawchuk. I would dearly love to get a grant and be able to go around western Ukraine/southeastern Poland, and visit the small local museums and document their material.

Dreams. This is likely some of the oldest types of embroidery found in the area. Very simple, based on holbein stitch, running stitch, buttonhole stitch, etc. Elaboration of the same stitches used to construct clothing. I will start with a few examples from Zhowkva county. Here is the inset [ustawka of a woman's chemise.

you can see the outline of the ustawka at the top, with two rows of running stitch around the edge. then some herringbone, overcast [blanket] stitch and running stitch on the top of the sleeve. Embroidery likely developed from this desire to strenthen seams. Here is an example of a collar from this county.

Some travelers in the 19th century reported that some villages had a rich embroidery tradition, and others had none at all. Here is an example of a simple yet elegant tradition that we have at least some record of.

Some of the designs included some simple cross stitch, like this one. This again is the ustawka of a woman's chemise, you can see the outline, and the top of the sleeve at the bottom.

One more example of a collar. The lines of double running stitch are sewn on to strengthen the collar, and here they form a frame for the embroidery.

And one design from a different source, confirming the general nature of the embroidery of this region.

If we go north a bit to Rava Rusa, we encounter very different embroidery. One type is done in zavolikannia stitch, where the thread is run over and under the length of the embroidery, imitating a woven design. We encountered this in Horodok county and others as well. It is executed like this.

Unfortunately, all of the examples given are simple labelled 'fragment of embroidery', so i have no idea what they were used on. I suspect whoever collected them just cut the embroidery out, a despicalble habit that was all too common among those who went around collecting. So all that the museum has is a scrap of linen with embroidery on it, usually not even edge stitched or hemmed. But at least we have examples of this embroidery. Here is a very simple one.

﻿As you can see, this was done in mostly red stitching, with just a touch of blue or black. This type of stitching is also done in Polissia, where they have developed different designs.

A couple more examples. I have not yet tried to duplicate these, but i think i should, just to be able to do it. They have a particular simple attractiveness of their own, owing to the texture due to repetition.

There is another style of embroidery that was done in the villages of this area, apparantly only on the collars of men's and boy's shirts. I have not yet figured out how some of them were stitched. Here is one example which is reminiscent of Javoriw work. Cross stitch, herringbone, and flat stitching.

Here is a similar one, with the addition of reshetiwka, or poverkhnytsia added in the middle, It was apparantly done in white, and is only visible as an erasure of the other colors and of the grid.

Here is a schematic as to how you do this stitch. There is one row in the center of the design, apparantly worked on the diagonal. I will have to try this to see if i can replicate it. It would be much easier to see a photograph.

There is one more type of embroidery in this group, which the text says was done in 'poza holku' which is the term used for herringbone, or any stitch where the needle comes out next to the previous stitch, such as stem stitch or some flat stitching. Here is a graph. I am not sure i can figure out how it was done. If any of you can replicate it, I would love to see it.

It would have to be done very fine. Here is a challenge for you.

Thank you all again for reading. These are relatively unknown types of embroidery, but they are also part of our history.

Feel
free to contact me with requests for research. I hope to eventually
cover all of Europe and the Former Russian Empire/Soviet Union. I also
gratefully accept tips on source materials which i may not have. I also
accept commissions to research/design, sew, and/or embroider costumes or
other items for groups or individuals.